Sadly, my blog posting is taking a hit lately. It isn’t that I don’t want to, or that I have nothing to say; it’s just that all my free time is taken up either with taking care of Jamieson, working, sleeping, doing chores, or spending quality time with Doc. It’s hard to find an hour or two where I’m actually in the mood to write, AND have the time to do it.

I hope to be able to find more time and energy to write as the weeks go on.

Anyway, here is what’s been going on during the last month.

The last part of May and first part of June pretty much sucked. Doc was sick with a bad chest and head cold, then I was sick with the stomach flu and exhaustion, then Jamie got the cold, then I got the cold. Luckily, Jamie had gotten the stomach bug earlier in the month, and Doc didn’t get it at all. I went to Kathryn and Brett’s Memorial Day cookout, but probably shouldn’t have, and we missed Valerie’s birthday dinner altogether. My doctor tried me on several different medications in an attempt to alleviate my exhaustion and feelings of being overwhelmed and anxious, but the side effects made me feel even MORE sick to my stomach and also plagued me with insomnia, both at night and while trying to nap. Shortly thereafter, I came to the conclusion that actually getting sleep would make me feel better a lot faster than trying to fool my brain into being happy, so I stopped taking it.

The weeks since have kind of been a blur. I definitely have been feeling better, probably largely due to the fact that I’ve been sleeping for one long stretch most nights. When I think back to just a few months ago, when I was lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of sleep in a row, this seems like an impossible dream!

We changed up our night feeding schedule. Doc does the first feeding (usually; if I’m still up I will do it sometimes) and the second feeding, and then I get up in the morning with Jamie. He’s usually up some time between 5 and 6:30 a.m., usually closer to 5. Although recently he’s taken to not really going back to sleep after his second feeding, which is kinda messing things up. We hope that he’s just starting to change up his own nocturnal schedule towards sleeping through the night.

Jamie turned six months old on June 8. Doc and I bought him some presents, and Grandma sent some too. We had some pretty intense storms blow through in early June, including some tornadoes nearby. Our power went out about 10 a.m. one morning after massive amounts of rain, and was out until nearly 11 that night. The house heated up quickly; Doc and Jamie went to the mall to cool down in the afternoon, and then we went out to dinner and ran some errands in the evening. The power came back on as we washed baby bottles by candlelight. The stoplight at our corner blinked red for almost a week before they fixed it.

We continue to try to get Jamie’s digestive issues fixed. He’s been on Nutramigen AA formula for about a month now. It costs $155 for a week’s supply. No, that is not a typo. We’ve been lucky enough to get a few samples from our gastroenterologist’s office as well as a couple of shipments from Dr. Debbie. I’m not sure that it’s really making that much of a difference for him, to be honest. Doc has observed that when he’s relaxed, he seems more relaxed now but when he’s fussy, he seems more fussy. More peaks and valleys, in otherwords, whereas on the regular Nutramigen he seemed fairly consistent with a low-grade fussiness. He has learned to accept the taste of it but he really didn’t like it at first. We think it doesn’t stick to his ribs as well as regular formula. It does seem thinner and more watery, like skim milk. He certainly continues to put on weight, but he’s not as satisfied with it.

We are going to a new pediatrician now. Our first pedi just wasn’t a good fit. I don’t think she ever really believed that there was anything wrong with Jamie. She once called him “high strung,” as if it was a personality issue that was causing his constant activity, crying, pain, and crankiness. She suggested that we just run the vacuum cleaner in his room all night, since constant loud noise often was the only way we could get him to sleep. Her bottom line with us was that he was gaining weight and thriving, so he was fine (and she repeated this to us at every visit). I know she thought that we were overreacting and exaggerating. It was as if she would prefer that Jamie just outgrow whatever was going on with him, rather than work with us to try to get him help. He may be gaining weight and growing properly, but there’s a whole quality of life issue that she was completely ignoring.

In fact, we finally went to the gastroenterologist (Dr. Annette Whitney) completely on our own, not because of any suggestion of the pediatrician’s. And Dr. Whitney knew what was wrong immediately, since milk and soy protein sensitivity is one of the most common infant food allergies. You’d think that the pediatrician might have picked up on this and at least suggested it to us as a possibility, but she never did.

Anyway, we really like our new pediatrician, Dr. Michael Brown. He’s personable and seemed to truly understand what we’ve been going through with Jamie, and he wants to help us get him feeling better. We’ve only been in to see him once, but so far I am pleased.

Dr. Brown prescribed a steroid cream for Jamie’s torso rash/eczema, and within a week the rash was completely gone. Poor baby isn’t scratching at his own skin all night and day now. I think that has really helped him to feel better overall.

He’s drinking prune juice (mixed with water), which smells like ass (and Doc confirms that it tastes disgusting too). But Jamie seems to like it just fine! And it’s helping keep him regular.

We started him on rice cereal, AGAIN. This is the third time, and the third brand we’ve tried. And at last! Success!! Healthy Times Organic Brown Rice Cereal does not give him 48 hours of intestinal cramping like the previous brands we tried. It says “NO SOY” right on the box in big letters. I suspect soy may be a bigger issue for him than dairy, because of his reactions to the other cereals, both of which contained soy (one from Vitamin E in an undeclared form; Earth’s Best Organic Brown Rice Cereal, I’m talking to you! Please label your cereal as NOT SOY FREE!). And of course, it’s twice as expensive as regular rice cereal, and only available at Whole Foods. Sigh.

He’s really getting the hang of eating from a spoon, and he seems to like the cereal. He’s figured out (mostly) that the spoon goes on TOP of his tongue, not underneath. When he’s cooperative, he doesn’t really even make much of a mess. We are usually giving some to him in the morning and the evening. We’ll be able to try a pureed fruit or vegetable in another week or so, I think, with guidance from Dr. Whitney.

She had us bring Jamie in for a barium enema, which was about as fun as it sounds. They filled his lower intestine with barium liquid and took x-rays of his little guts, and although they didn’t see anything immediately wrong, they found it really interesting (and so did we) that it took him about 30 minutes and a feeding to “expel” the barium. Most babies get rid of it immediately and forcefully. Not so Jamieson. We heard today that the results came back normal. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I am really glad that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with him. On the other hand, if they had found something, it would have at least been an answer and we could have been on the road to getting it fixed. Mostly I’m thrilled that the tests were normal, though.

So now we wait, and keep searching for answers.

We had a nice father’s day. Jamie did a drawing for Doc with giant crayons — his first artwork! I framed it in a special frame that opens with a magnet and allows you to swap out artwork whenever you please. He also got another Bluebird of Happiness for the bedroom. Then we all went out to lunch at Picasso’s Pizza, and later went shopping at Fry’s. For dinner we grilled bacon-wrapped filet mignons (Mom’s gift to Doc) and had rice pilaf, salad, and wine. A good day.

We finally unplugged from spoon-fed entertainment… we cancelled our cable and Tivo service! I have had some form of cable television since I was about 11 years old, save for the three years I lived in the dorms at college. And you know what? I don’t miss it one bit. Since all stations are now required to provide local over-the-air programming for free in digital, we bought a converter box and antenna for the upstairs TV, and an eyeTV and antenna for the downstairs TV. Upstairs, I just watch whatever’s on if I am interested (which is rare), and downstairs, they eyeTV streams the over-the-air HD and digital content to the mac mini and into the TV. The mini works as a DVR, and we also are using Boxee (although now are moving to Plex, which just works better), Netflix instant streaming, Hulu desktop, iTunes, etc. etc. Almost anything that we used to get through cable and record on the Tivos, we either watch through the good ol’ Interwebs or record it using the eyeTV and the mini. There was an initial cost to get all the equipment, but the amount that we’ll save each month on cable and Tivo bills will make up for all that in just a little over a year. Doc did a ton of research and spent hours and hours trying to find the simplest and most elegant solution for us, and he really did a fantastic job!

I’ll have to post more later. I’m tired now and want to get this out to the teeming millions (a.k.a. my two readers, who may very well have given up on me now that I’m only posting once every few weeks)…

I had a couple of strange dreams the other night.

In one, I was having dinner with my parents, Doc, my dad’s brother whom I have not seen since I was a young teenager, and two people from my office, among other guests, at my parents’ old house in Plano. The kitchen was dark and lit with candles and little brass lanterns, and the table was a large square dark wood table, with placemats and dinnerware in beautiful earth tones and rich reds.

Mom was, not entirely of her own volition but at the suggestion of one of the dinner guests, cooking an authentic Central or South American meal for us. She brought around little tiny shot glasses shaped like the bowls of martini glasses, and gave each of us three of them containing different authentic cocktails. It was a gorgeous presentation.

And then in the center of the table, she set down a small bowl containing the plucked and bloody carcasses of two small birds. She had an exacto knife and said that, in keeping with cultural tradition, she had to perform an augury before the meal. An augury, if you recall from studying classic literature, is a ceremony where a priest or augur examines the entrails of sacrificed birds or other animals in order to predict the future. I was horrified; clearly my mom did not want to do this but felt forced to. I got up from the table and said that I couldn’t take this and had to leave. I went into my dad’s study to lie down on the carpet until the animal sacrifice part was over. I fully expected that someone would come get me when dinner began, but I guess I fell asleep or something because next thing I knew, my mom woke me up. I went into the kitchen and all the guests were gone and the table cleared off.

In another dream, I had to go back to high school for a year, and I went to live with my parents so that I could attend the school in their area. I got up the first morning, looked in the mirror and realized that I was very thin. I was wearing a short skirt that I kept pulling down because I knew Mom wouldn’t let me out of the house wearing it if she realized how short it really was (but it was FASHIONABLE!). I fumbled around trying to get a lunch together and find something to eat for breakfast. The only thing in my parents’ refrigerator that I could find to eat was a tortilla. All their cheeses and meats were left unwrapped and sitting out on the shelf, drying out and crusting over.

Whoever was driving me to school arrived, and I had to get down the stairs to the basement/garage, but the stairs were unbelievably steep and completely covered with knickknacks of every sort. I was afraid I’d step on something or fall. Somehow I made it downstairs and to school.

The school seemed to only have valet parking. The building itself, both inside and out, was made of a beautiful dark mahogany wood, with little brass lanterns everywhere. It looked like a law office or something. I couldn’t figure out which area of the building my first class was in, since things were marked very poorly. I ended up late to the first class. Lunch was my second period of the day, and I was shocked to realize that they expected me to eat lunch at 10 in the morning. I didn’t know what to do with the lunch I’d brought, as it appeared to be a plastic grocery sack full of frozen vegetables. One of my classmates told me that I could store it in the large freezer in the lunchroom, as everyone had their own space there.

I think that I decided I didn’t want to go to school anymore, because part way through the day I went into a storage area in one of the hallways, opened a large sliding door, and fetched my mahogany ladder with brass pins. Someone had dismantled it for storage, so I had to put it back together. I needed the ladder in order to get my car keys. Outside the school, in the valet parking area, was an enormous magazine rack, the height of the school. It contained giant magazines, and all the car keys were hung at the very top. This is why I needed the ladder. Kids without ladders often made a game of trying to sneak past the valets and climb the rack to get their own keys. The valets were more like police officers, actually; you definitely were not supposed to do this.

I was on the front lawn of the school and I watched as Valerie came out, looked around sneakily for valets, and began to scale the magazine rack. But she wasn’t going after car keys; she simply wanted a copy of Fortune magazine because her picture was on the cover! Sadly, she got caught by the valet cops and handcuffed. And that’s when I woke up.

In yet another dream, I dreamed that Jamie spoke his first word: “probably.” I looked at him and said, “Did you just say something?” He put his hands on my face, pulled me in close like he does when he is giving a kiss, and said, “Pwobabwy, mommy!”

May 26

How do two sick parents manage to care for a demanding 6 month old, all without getting him sick too?! It’s a daunting task. I miss living near family sometimes :( Thanks to Auntie Rachel for pitching in to help us get some rest today.
Doc and I have been sick for the past week or so, he with a nasty head and chest cold, and me with some sort of stomach virus. We’re both feeling better now, him moreso than me. But it was pretty tough for a while. I sure miss my mom. I’m thinking more and more lately about packing up and moving to live closer to them. It would be crazy to leave a good job and try to sell a house, considering the current state of the economy. But what once seemed like a far off “some day” kind of dreamy possibility, now seems much more real.

May 24

I feel like crap. Exhausted from baby. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. But I’m trying SO hard…
The weekend consisted of nausea, vomiting, dehydration, exhaustion, inability to eat, inability to sleep when I did get a chance, trying to entertain the baby when I didn’t have any energy reserves, and trying to prevent him from getting Doc’s cold. Unfortunately, he does seem to have an occasional low grade fever and a little cough now, but nothing too major.

May 22

I hate hate HATE dealing with the medical insurance industry.
We are about to engage in battle with Blue Cross in an attempt to get them to cover Jamie’s Nutramigen AA formula, which is unbelievably expensive. The cheapest we’ve been able to find it will cost us about $25-$35 per DAY. It is a medical necessity due to his food sensitivities, and some states do require insurance companies to cover elemental formulas for babies with severe allergies. Texas is, of course, not one of them. Wish us luck.

May 21

I am glad my son is feeling lots better most of the time, but wishes that he wouldn’t fight sleep with every fiber of his being.
He just hates going to sleep. He hates staying asleep. And he’s really good at not sleeping for very long at a stretch. This is getting so tiring.

May 18

I am trapped beneath a sleeping baby in my office…
Jamie came to visit me for a couple of hours while Doc went to a doctor appointment. It was nice.

May 17

I was born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia.
We went with Rich and  Angela to the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. It was closing weekend, and crowded beyond belief. The exhibit was really neat, and we enjoyed the company and subsequent dinner at Ziziki’s.

May 12

I miss my mom already, but look forward to days of smooth sailing. We all deserve it.
Mom left for home this morning. I miss her a lot. Sadly, the ’smooth sailing’ part hasn’t quite happened yet, but we’re working on it.

May 10

I am confused by the new movie “Rise of the Lichens.”
Yes, I know it’s “lycans.” I just like to imagine a film about strange symbiotic plant-animals rebelling against their oppressors.

My first Mother’s Day! It felt a little odd to be the one being celebrated today. I’ve never done this before! And I guess part of me feels like I haven’t earned my mothering stripes yet. Which is silly after all we’ve been through this year. I am most definitely a mommy!

I got a present from Jamieson: a stack of books that I can read to him! They are all about babies and mommies, like “Does A Kangaroo  Have A Mother, Too?” by Eric Carle, “Is Your Mama a Llama?” by Deborah Guarino and Steven Kellogg, and “Yes Yes No No” by Leslie Patricelli. I can’t wait for storytime tomorrow night! (He was too tired to have a story after his bath today).

Doc surprised me with a picnic breakfast on the patio! All my favorite breakfast foods: bagels, cream cheese, fruit, bacon, muffins, and juice. And a beautiful bouquet of deep red-orange lilies. The weather was cool and drizzly — just perfect for a picnic with my husband and baby and my mom!

And Mom gave me a very sweet card and a locket with photos of Doc and Jamieson inside! The locket came from my great-grandfather’s house, so it probably belonged to either my great- or great-great grandmother. It’s absolutely beautiful, an interesting ornate design that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

I got to spend all day with Jamie today, playing and napping and having fun. We took a nice walk, and baked a chocolate zucchini cake, and he took four (count ‘em, FOUR) nice long naps today.

And for dinner, we ordered in pizza from my favorite pizza place, Picasso’s. I also had a spinach salad for the first time in like three weeks. And for dessert, homemade chocolate cake and Blue Bell ice cream!

It was a great day. I love my family! :)

Rock-a-bye Jamie, in mommy’s arms
When the wind blows, it sets off alarms
When mommy stops, the baby will wake
And we’ll go downstairs, and eat chocolate cake!

Jamie’s visit to the gastroenterologist on Thursday proved to be rather interesting. We went in armed with a very complete written history of his issues, a video of him doing his growling-animal-in-pain thing, and a bunch of questions. We were SO prepared.

We had a nice visit with the doctor (Dr. Annette Whitney), who was quite personable. She seemed very concerned that Jamie’s been suffering his whole life and that the pediatrician hadn’t been much help.

We described his history of problems to her, and told her that we took Jamie off of breastmilk a week ago in an attempt to rule that out (or in) as the issue. We’ve had him on Nutramigen formula, at the recommendation of the lactation consultant.

And quite honestly, this has been the best week of his life. He has been so happy, so relaxed, and sleeping better at night. We didn’t want to get our hopes up too high, but it was looking like that might be part of the answer.

After observing him, looking at his full-torso rash, listening to us describe his symptoms, and watching the video we brought, she told us that he was almost certainly hypersensitive to cow’s milk proteins and soy proteins. His little system just isn’t able to break them down yet.

Clearly he has had a combination of problems. Colic for sure (whatever that is), possibly acid reflux to some degree (since he always used to stiffen his legs and arch his body into a banana shape), and the cow and soy protein sensitivity. When I went off of dairy when he was two months old, the likely reason that we didn’t notice any change was that I was still eating beef. No one ever told me that it could have been a sensitivity to ALL cow products. And, of course, he has had the other issues all along as well, that could have masked any improvements from cutting out dairy.

So our choice was to either continue him on Nutramigen or for me to go on an elimination diet, which means that I can eat only brown rice, chicken, turkey, fruits, vegetables, and water until he is a year old. Neither option is ideal. Nutramigen is expensive, but I think that I would find it nearly impossible to stick to that rigid of a diet for the next seven months. What Jamie eats is important, but having a mommy who is happy is also important, and I know that I would be miserable.

So we made the tough decision to stop breastfeeding. Thursday, April 30, was his last meal from me. I feel guilty as hell, but I know it was the right choice for our family.

The gastroenterologist gave us a sample can of a formula called Nutramigen AA, which she said that we could consider if the regular Nutramigen didn’t continue to work for him. We gave him a couple of bottles of it that night just to see if he liked it. He did. Then we found out that it is approximately $70 for a 12 ounce can of formula powder that would last us 2-1/2 days. Luckily, he is doing just fine on regular Nutramigen!

Either he didn’t react well to the Nutramigen AA, or he caught a little bug on Thursday night/Friday morning. This child has never pooped more than 2 or 3 times a week in his entire short life, and within 24 hours he went about a dozen times. Apparently that’s called “diarrhea,” LOL. I suspect that he just had a little stomach bug, because I wasn’t feeling so great Friday and Saturday, myself. Awww, our first shared disease :)

Poor little Jamie has had some awful diaper rash from the diarrhea. His little butt is bright red and raw. We  slather him with Triple Paste and Gold Bond medicated baby powder, whenever we change him. And because even just being wet can hurt his raw areas, we are changing his diaper a LOT now. I think he’s beginning to heal up, but he’s had a few painful days and one rather sleepless night. His little pain screams just break my heart. It’s interesting how I can now tell the difference between cries of “I’m tired,” “I’m hungry,”, and “Dammit this HURTS!”

Man, if it’s not one thing it’s another with this baby. We’ve given him Pedialyte a few times to make sure that he’s not getting dehydrated. I’m not sure that was ever a real danger, but we wanted to be careful. Hopefully, in the coming week his rash and diarrhea will clear up, and the new formula will continue to agree with him. He deserves another good week. We all do.

I’ve also been trying to figure out how to stop my milk production. I’ve read hints that range from stuffing my bra with cabbage to wrapping my chest with an Ace bandage, and contradictions such as expressing just enough milk to keep comfortable versus expressing no milk whatsoever. All I know is that right now, and for the past day or so, I have really been hurting. I think I’m going to go get some ice packs now.

Last Monday night I didn’t get much sleep. I went into work on Tuesday but felt just terrible, like I was getting the flu or something. My boss sent me home mid-morning. I tried to nap a little but Jamie demanded a lot of energy and attention from both Doc and I during the day. And Doc has a lot of work to do at the moment, several big jobs that he needs to devote a lot of time and concentration to. Jamie exhausts him during the day, and he rarely has time to do any work until I get home in the evenings.

By Tuesday afternoon, I was a wreck. My baby was in serious discomfort, I was completely worn out, and Doc needed more time and energy than he had available. I had to admit that we needed help. Something had to change. It’s not that we couldn’t take care of Jamie; we just couldn’t really do much of anything else too.

So we made a couple of decisions:

1. I would call the lactation nurse in the morning for a same-day appointment, so we could try (again) to find some answers as to why Jamie feels bad all the time; and
2. I called my mom. I needed to hear my mommy’s voice and reassurance. And I was going to feel her out and see if I could muster up the courage to ask her to come down and help us out for a little while.

I know, it’s completely insane to ask my mom, who lives 2,500 miles from us, to get on a plane and come give us a hand, but we don’t have any family here. We don’t have friends who can pitch in during the days to help with Jamie (everyone works full-time). We don’t have day-care or a nanny. We don’t belong to a church that a has mothers-day-out program.

As it turns out, it didn’t take much convincing to get mom to buy a plane ticket (surprised?). She was here 24 hours later.

I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for that. She is the best mom in the whole world!

And Jamie’s behavior scared her. She has raised three kids and babysat countless other babies throughout her life, and she said that she has never seen a baby do things like stop in the middle of a feeding to scream and cry and growl like an animal in pain.

We visited the pediatrician and the lactation nurse, neither of whom seemed to think that Jamie is having problems. The pediatrician has always said, basically, that he’s gaining weight and thriving, so he’s fine. (Sigh) It’s like they don’t want to bother finding out what is wrong with him because he’s too little and “he’ll out grow it, anyway.” I’m about ready to find a new pediatrician who doesn’t think that we’re being overreactive parents.

So with little encouragement and no answers from our chosen medical professionals, we decided to take him off breastmilk for a week just to rule that out as a problem. The nurse recommended a formula called Nutramigen, which is like a super-gentle super-broken-down formula that the fussiest babies can usually handle. Problem is, it’s twice as expensive as regular formula. He goes through a $25 can in about three days. At least it smells better than the other formula that we were supplementing him with (Gentlease, which smells, as Doc put it, “like garbage and candy”).

I am cautiously optimistic that it’s working, at least to some degree. VERY cautiously optimistic, though. Jamie has fooled us before with a run of three or four good days in a row (such as when I stopped eating leafy greens). Ever since Thursday afternoon, he’s been like a different baby. Very calm, very relaxed, happy a lot of the time.

He’s still not sleeping all that well, and as a result he gets overtired during the day and crabby towards the evening. It’s hard to get him to nap for any good length of time, a lot of the time. Same song, different verse. And Sunday wasn’t the most fabulous of days, compared to Friday and Saturday.

Mom’s help has been invaluable. She’s taken over some of the night feedings, which allows me to sleep and Doc to either sleep or work. And she helps with the baby during the days, so Doc can work or nap or whatever. My sweet Doc has always done a wonderful job of getting me extra sleep (at cost to himself, of course, which always makes me feel guilty), but with Mom here too, I can get even more. I feel like I’m beginning to catch up a little bit, and when Mom leaves I will probably have a good amount of energy in reserves that I can draw from again.

We have an appointment with a pediatric gastroenterologist this week. Even though Jamie’s doing better on formula at the moment than he was on breastmilk, we want to take him in to see the specialist and see if we can find any answers. Our goal is to get him back on breastmilk if at all possible. I really miss nursing him. I hate pumping, and I especially hate getting up in the  middle of the night to do it. Our freezer is quickly running out of room to store milk. Hopefully we can find some answers soon, before we have to start tossing milk.

But, if it turns out that taking him off breastmilk is the best solution, then that’s what we will do and I will have no regrets.

Well… Okay, I might have a few secret regrets. First, that we didn’t try this sooner and saved our baby and ourselves months of agony. Second, I love breastfeeding Jamie and I will miss that bond, that closeness, the ease of feeding him however much he wants, whenever and wherever, at the perfect temperature. I can’t pretend that I won’t mourn that loss for a while.

But my baby’s comfort is my first priority. I gave him almost five months of nutrient-rich, antibody-rich breastmilk, and that’s a really good start. I would do ANYTHING to make him feel better.

I had a feeling that it was too good to be true. Jamie’s had a really bad few days. He was doing great for a while when I first stopped eating leafy greens, but the last five or six days have been kind of bad. He hasn’t felt well most of the day and he wakes up a lot in the night. Not because he’s hungry, but because he doesn’t feel good. We’re seeing the lactation nurse this morning and hopefully she can recommend some further steps we can take to get this problem solved.

It just kills me that my baby is in pain. I would do ANYTHING to solve this. All options are on the table now.

April 12

Tried on a cute dress today. Made me look like curtains from the 70s.
It was green and pleated, and looked cute hanging on the rack. Not so much on me. I had to go clothes shopping and get a few things in a (horrors!) larger size. I keep telling myself it’s only temporary. But the numbers on the scale don’t seem to be moving much. Making milk for Jamie makes me seriously hungry.

The other thing that happened today: Jamie tried his first solid food, rice cereal. He wasn’t that into it. In fact, he got kind of upset. I guess we probably shouldn’t have tried to give it to him when he was super hungry. We tried again before bedtime and it was a lot easier. We made the cereal thicker, and he very quickly got the hang of eating off the spoon, even going so far as to grab  the handle to help shove it into his mouth. Unfortunately, he had a really bad night and a bad day the next day so we decided to wait a while before giving him any more.

April 14

Breakfast: organic yogurt, strawberries, and coffee. Mmmm.

The Infant Commander had a good night last night.
I can’t really remember the specifics about this night, but I think it might have been the night he woke at 8 p.m., midnight, and 4 a.m. Four hours between feedings, consistently!

April 16

I wonder how to make a 4-month-old nap when he is clearly tired but won’t go to sleep…
This is one of our greatest challenges: getting the baby to nap. He is way more interested in interacting with us and with his environment than he is in going to sleep. We are finding that sleep begets sleep, though. It seems counterintuitive, but if we can get him to nap and to sleep longer at night, then it’s easier for him to continue napping and sleeping longer. An overtired baby is a cranky baby who doesn’t want to sleep. He won’t drift off on his own, though, so we are on the lookout for new soothing methods.

April 17

I just got stung by an f-ing bee, or wasp, or fire ants. On my toe. F!!!
That hurt like hell. I was outside with Jamie at twilight, showing him the plants on the back deck, and I must have stepped on or near a bee or wasp. Of course I was barefoot. It got me on the side of my 4th toe, and what started as a little stinging sensation quickly blossomed into a full fledged foot-on-fire feeling. I quickly checked Jamie to make sure that there weren’t any bees on or near him, and hopped inside. I stuck him in his bouncer and hopped around the living room, cursing to myself. Doc was out running errands and I called him to let him know that I’d been stung, Jamie was in a safe place, and I didn’t know if I was allergic or not since this was only the 2nd bee sting I’ve ever had. I figured that in case I passed out, he ought to be aware of what was going on. I did not pass out. Soaking my foot in a bowl of ice water helped. I was sore for a few days.

April 18

I am very pleased by the dinner I whipped up tonight: club sandwiches, tomato soup, and spinach salads.
It was good! I didn’t find out until later that the spinach was a bad idea… Read on.

I am kinda surprised and annoyed that my love for red meat, acquired during pregnancy, has not gone away.
Beef! Sausage! Bacon! (Is bacon red meat?)

April 21

In honor of Earth Day, I have stopped eating green leafy vegetables. Save the spinaches!
So I stopped eating green leafies. Out of desperation, we called our lactation consultant, who determined that all the spinach I’ve been eating might be the cause of Jamie’s gassy uncomfortableness. And so it seems to be the case! I’ve been off spinach, greens, lettuce, cabbage, etc. (and broccoli for good measure) since the 21st, and the difference is remarkable. He is so much more relaxed now. The ironic thing is, I increased my spinach intake while pregnant and continued after Jamie was born, because it is so chock full of nutrients. If only I’d known… we could have saved him (and ourselves) months of agony. I’m trying not to let the guilt get to me.

April 24

I am kinda weirded out by how green beans squeak against my teeth. Perhaps a generous serving of butter on top would fix that problem…
Really, they do squeak if I just eat them steamed without butter. It’s odd. Rachel suggests eating them with bacon, and you can bet I’m going to try that next time.

April 26

I am grateful to Doc for last night’s 6 hour sleep block and to Jamie for sleeping till 7:30 this morning.
A breakthrough! Jamie had his bottle at 1 a.m. but woke up at 3:30 crying. He’d had something like 7 ounces of milk, so it’s not that he was hungry — but I’ve always nursed him on demand when he woke, because that was the only surefire way to get him back to sleep. This time, Doc gave him a pacifier and rocked him for about an hour and a half. Every time he tried to put him back in his crib, he started to come awake again. At 5 he handed Jamie off to me so he could get some sleep. I sat in the rocker with him for another hour, then decided to bring him into bed with me. I fed him a short time later (5-1/2 hours between feedings!) and then he slept until 7:30. Doc won me six hours of solid sleep and since Jamie’s been consistently getting up around 5 or 5:30 a.m., I was quite pleased at how late he slept today.

April 27

‘Tis easier for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is to thread a greasy baby through a onesie.
That boy does not like having cream applied, but he gets rashy on his neck and chest where drool-soaked onesie fabric sits against his skin. So we rub him with Boudreaux’s Baby Butt Smooth Dry  Skin Ointment after his bath, and that usually makes him upset, and then our next task is to try to get a crying greasy baby into his jammies.

****

Big Top Growth Chart

A coworker showed me a link to this circus-themed growth chart. I love it! It’s kind of expensive so I might ask for it as a birthday or Christmas gift instead of just buying it. I like the idea of having a permanent record of Jamie’s growth. When I was growing up, we made marks on a doorframe (as I suspect so did many of you).

Last night was another good night as far as training Jamie that he really doesn’t need to eat every 2 hours at night. He woke up a mere 2-1/2 hours after his last bottle, and instead of feeding him I gave him a pacifier and rocked him. He wasn’t too happy about it at first, but succumbed to the sleepies a short while later. He then slept another hour and a half before waking to eat. I hope this is a trend, and eventually he just won’t wake up for that feeding anymore. Doc has been working so hard to make this happen. I was glad I could pitch in a little bit last night.

So in addition to spinach, I am also off of caffeine. Although my caffeine intake isn’t enormous (one cup of coffee plus several diet Cokes per day, usually), I suspect that Jamie might be somewhat sensitive to it, so I have cut it out of my diet completely. I went cold turkey and have had headaches for the past three days. I wonder why they call it “cold turkey.” Perhaps suddenly quitting a habit is about as appealing as a cold plate of turkey. I can dig that.

Jamieson has crossed another milestone in his young life: He is now sitting up like a big boy! This means that, if we put him in a seated position, he can usually stay sitting by himself for a short period. If he begins to fall to one side, he’ll put out his hand to steady himself. Often he leans way forward for balance, but now I am seeing him sitting upright with good posture, more and more. Yesterday we had him sitting on his playmat, and he was gripping Doc’s fingers for balance. And then, he let go. On his own.

Here’s a few recent photos…

April Foods!

Yes, I realize that April Fools’ Day was two weeks ago. I meant to post this the same day but just haven’t gotten to it yet.

Whole Foods had a great home page on April 1. Click the picture below to see it full size. I love the recipes section — Chianti and Gorgonzola Popsicles! Yeah!!

Yikes. Last night was kinda bad. Jamie wouldn’t sleep for more than maybe an hour at a stretch, and he was restless and “murfing” the whole time. Doc valiantly tried to soothe him back to sleep, multiple times, but he kept waking up. He full-on woke up at 3:30, after I’d fed him at 2:15 (and this was after drinking 8 ounces from a bottle at 1:00… seriously, kid?!); I fed him again in hopes that he’d drift off back to sleep, but no luck. He was wide awake and crying. I couldn’t calm him. Doc, who had just come to bed, took him so I could get a little more sleep before work. I’m sure he is completely exhausted today. I just don’t know what to do in situations like that; I have to work and he has to care for the baby the whole day. Both of those are very tiring, so who takes the hit? It’s always Doc. I don’t think that’s fair, but I don’t have a better answer.

Yesterday we gave Jamie his first solid food: rice cereal. He wasn’t really going for it in the morning, so we tried again before his last feeding before bedtime. He seemed to really like it, and got the hang of eating off the spoon fairly quickly.

So maybe his little system just isn’t ready for that yet, and maybe that’s what was keeping him up all night. Who knows. We’re going to stop with the cereal for a while and see if he goes back to his normal patterns.

More random updates:

Yvonne told me that a friend of hers worked her butt off to pump milk when her baby was little, and eventually built up something like a 2- or 3-month supply of frozen breastmilk in a freezer in their garage. One day, a breaker tripped and the garage power went off. They didn’t notice until all the milk had thawed and spoiled. That story makes me feel sick inside. The time investment alone that a supply that big represents… unbelievable. All that work gone to waste. I think I would have cried for days.

Doc and I took an infant CPR class last Saturday, taught by the same woman who taught our baby care and breastfeeding classes. Now we are certified for infant, child, and adult CPR. Hopefully, should the need ever arise, I will remember what I was taught. 30 compressions, 2 breaths, repeat.

My new nickname for Neko is “Helper Kitty.” She’s so sweet — whenever the baby cries, she comes running and hangs out, purring and looking concerned. It’s like she wants to help! Actually, it reduces my stress level to have her with me, rubbing her furry head on my ankles.

Jamie had his first taste of apple juice last Wednesday. Both Debbie and our pediatrician recommended it to help move things through his system. Jamie has really only pooped maybe twice a week for most of his life. I know this is not too unusual, but he gets progressively more uncomfortable and unhappy in the days leading up to each Poop Event. He’s gone by himself on three of the four days he’s been having juice. So… I’m not quite ready to definitively say that it’s solved the issue, but it is a good start. We are also now giving him probiotics (acidophilus bacteria) in an attempt to get his system regulated.

He loves his exersaucer and jolly-jumper bouncer. He plays with all the toys, and especially loves the spinning frog above the mirror, and the three wheels that click when he spins them. We have the exersaucer in the bathroom, and we can usually put him in it to play while we shower, brush our teeth, dress, etc.

Last week he participated in the Infant Research Project at UTD. They had him sit on our laps and look at different women speaking on a video screen in either comforting tones or happy approving tones. They were testing his attention span, and measuring how well he could tell the difference between the two tones. He also looked at faces of different races, to test how well he could differentiate. For his participation, he earned a certificate proclaiming him an official Infant Scientist. This made me both giggle and tear up a little. My baby’s first degree!

Work is going fine. It’s surprisingly hard for me to work from home on Thursdays, mostly because I can hear Doc and Jamie all day and can’t help when Jamie’s unhappy and can’t join in when he’s playful. I’m really busy being an Associate Director now (ooh, how fancy!) Basically, that means that I do the work I was doing before, plus manage two people, and have about three times more meetings than before, and spend so much of my time managing projects and delegating and putting out fires that I don’t actually have tons of time to do design work anymore. Sigh.

I had a really good annual review this year. My workplace insists that we fill out a form where we measure ourselves (and our supervisors rate us) on ten different dimensions, most of which don’t relate to how well you do your job. So my boss likes to perfunctorily go over the form but then just have a conversation about how the year went and about the year to come. It’s a great way to conduct a review. I used that as a model for how I then conducted the annual review for the designer that works for me. That went well too, largely because he’s a good guy with a strong work ethic, and he makes my job easy. My other employee is too new to the company to have an annual review, but I will be doing her 90-day review in a few weeks.

Posting frequently is just about impossible these days. I know it’s been something like three weeks now, maybe more, and I’ve probably lost my two readers for good. But, I do what I can.

So my life pretty much revolves around Jamie, of course, and I don’t have many other topics to write about, so if you’re tired of reading about Mr. Baby, you can pretty much just skip this one.

Goin' to Florida for the winter

I’m going to try something new here. It’s tough for me to write a cohesive blog post when I’m so tired and don’t have much time, but it’s fairly easy for me to keep my Twitter and Facebook statuses updated. So I’m going to share some of those posts here, and expand on them a bit to give you an idea of what’s been going on.

April 11

Jamie keeps trying to roll over from back to front. He’s almost got it, he just can’t quite get his legs over. I’m not ready for this!

April 9

I am grateful to Kathryn for cooking dinner AND cleaning the kitchen!!
Kathryn came over after work. We played with the baby, who was Mr. Cry-Cry Pants for a large chunk of time, gave him a bath, and then I fed him while Kathryn inventoried our kitchen and cooked us dinner (pizza and salad). AND she did the dishes. I LOVE YOU KAT!

My baby has doubled his birth weight, grown over 7 inches, now drinks apple juice, and wears big boy pajamas! They grow up so fast… sniffle… ;)
Oh my goodness. He had his 4-month checkup yesterday. He weighs 17 pounds 6 ounces and is 27-3/4″ tall. That’s the 75th percentile for weight and off the charts for height. We grow ‘em tall in the Scott household. His colic is largely gone, although he definitely still has digestive troubles that make him very unhappy for days at a time. He got his second round of shots, which made him very sleepy the rest of the day and he also ran a little fever. We gave him half-doses of infants’ Tylenol drops to help him with the associated fussiness. He’s basically happy and healthy; the doctor seemed pleased with his progress, although she did say he was “high-strung.” She recommended starting him on 2 ounces of apple juice per day, to help him poop (he has only been going maybe twice a week, and is very uncomfortable for the 2 or so days leading up to The Poop Event.) He likes the juice but not as much as my milk (yay!) She also said that we could give him probiotics — acidophilus bacteria, the “good” bacteria in our guts. It could help his digestive issues, and certainly won’t hurt. He also can start having rice cereal, which may help his digestion and might help him sleep for longer stretches, since he’s such a hungry boy. We haven’t given him cereal yet but may start this weekend.

The first step is admitting you have a problem: My name is Katy, and I need 8-9 hours of sleep at night.
It’s true, I do. I can get by on 7 hours without too much trouble, and clearly I can survive on 3-4 if needed, but Optimal Katy is 8 to 9 hours at night. I freely admit that I love sleep and need lots of it. Not everyone in my household does. :)

Mr. Bright Eyes

April 6

I feel like the walking dead today.
Didn’t get much sleep last night. Very rough night. Jamie didn’t sleep well and then got up super early.

I need to stop reading articles about child kidnappings in China, before I completely lose it.
“Deng Huidong lost her 9-month-old son in the blink of an eye as a man yanked him from the grip of his 7-year-old sister near the doorway of their home. The car did not even stop as a pair of arms reached out the window and grabbed the boy.”

I think “it gets easier” is a lie people tell new parents to get them to keep going.
I mean, it HAS gotten easier. He’s a totally different baby now than he was two months ago. But it’s happening so slowly, and we are so exhausted. I’m ready for a few quick changes to keep me going.

April 5

Gosh, it sure is windy out.
Sure was. I think a cool front blew through.

Jamie just went 4-1/4 hours between feedings. Yay!
But he’s not making it a regular habit! Boo!

April 4

Sitting on patio, chowing down on Triscuits. Baby is in bounce house. Gorgeous day in the shade.
Yeah, this was a pretty good day. I took him outside in his little bouncer play center thing (they used to be called “Jolly Jumpers” and you’d hang them by a clamp from a door frame. Now they’re more like Exersaucers on springs) and the temperature was perfect. I love Triscuits. Just plain old salted Triscuits.

Drinking coffee, nursing baby, reading “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.”
I’m not sure if I should be consuming caffeine while nursing — while I’m actually nursing, or even inbetween. Maybe Jamie’s sensitive to it? Hard to say. I think I’ll try to cut it out of my diet for a while and see if it makes a difference.

April 3

Just watched Battlestar Galactica finale. Cried.
I won’t post any spoilers here. I’m going to miss The Best Show on Television, but I think it ended exactly when it needed to. The final scene between Bill and Laura made me sob like a baby. And I know baby sobbing, believe me!

Friends don’t just randomly shout into the darkness, and hope someone’s listening!
Thanks to Doc for showing me this awesome animation about Twitter.

April 2

Watching Baby Einstein videos while eating dinner.

April 1

Walking & tweeting at the same time.

I miss my Jamie and Doc. Love you, family!

I am a milk-making machine.

Simpsons stamps!
Too cool! The Simpsons can still occasionally pull off a good episode or two.

Trying to convince myself to drink a can of V8 juice with breakfast.
It didn’t work. I like V8 and it’s always good to eat extra veggies, but I just couldn’t do it this morning.

March 31

Interested in the results oriented work environment.
The concept is basically, as long as you get your work done and are reasonably available to your co-workers, it doesn’t matter when or where you work. Oh, and meetings are all optional.

March 30

I miss my baby and husband.

We had a great Sunday. Happy baby, awesome weather, Schlotzsky’s, Arboretum & visit with Dad, freelance work, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, wine, cookies.

March 29

I am having a better day.
See below.

March 28

I forgot to pay Rachel for the movie ticket. D’oh.
I had a horrible day, emotionally. I was very very down all day, and Jamie was very very upset all day, and I had a hard time dealing with it. I cried a lot. Everyone pretends that babies are all unicorns and rainbows and fairy dust, and nobody ever tells you that there will be days when you just don’t want to be a parent anymore. I went out to the movies with Rachel and Kathryn in the evening (AFI Film Festival, Student Shorts), and had a good time, despite initially not feeling like going. Doc encouraged me to get out of the house for a couple of hours. I wish I’d felt like having dinner afterwards, but I just wanted to go home and sleep.

March 27

I forgot to pump this morning. I am going to regret this.
It wasn’t too bad, actually. I was engorged but not painfully so, and I got 7 ounces of milk instead of my usual 5.

March 25

I feel overwhelmed with love for my son and husband. Family!!

March 24

I do not want to buy a whole new wardrobe, but still can’t fit into my pre-baby clothes. I’m tired of wearing baggy maternity wear.
Well, I am giving in and going out tomorrow afternoon to get some new clothes. I am tired of wearing pants that I have to hike up every few steps… and, sadly, I can’t even fit into my “fat” clothes from before. I know that while pregnant I kept saying that I felt so good about my body that I didn’t care if I never lost the baby weight… but my hormones are different now and I am NOT HAPPY carrying around a couple of spare tires between the boobs and the thighs. (I am happy with the boobs, though, I have to admit. They can stay the way they are!!!)

Purse contains five paperclips, four loose pennies, one packet of Splenda, half an Obama button, but… no… keys.
Found office keys an hour or so later. They had fallen out of my purse onto the floor of my car.

I know that the caves won’t save us!!
We went out to the movies the night before, on my mom’s last day here, so she could babysit and we could get some time away from Mr. Baby. We watched “Knowing,” with Nicolas Cage. The movie was not bad, but it was out of focus the entire time. We asked an employee to fix it, but nobody ever did. I got a headache. We complained to a manager afterwards and he gave us six free unrestricted passes, and I have no idea when we will be able to use them again. Anyway, the movie was decent but there were some seriously cheeseball lines in it, and that was one of them.

March 22

Drinking a Newcastle Brown on the patio.
Warm weather, and good cold imported beer. Hell yeah.

March 20

Date night: Coraline, then Red Lobster. But I miss my son..
Mom babysat. The movie was fantastic, and the 3D effects didn’t seem gratuitous (unlike the effects in the remake of “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which we saw a few weeks earlier via Netflix). Red Lobster: Love the cheesy biscuits. Like, I could eat a meal of just those. We had a nice time out, but we sure missed Jamie.

Lots of people ask me if Jamie is sleeping through the night yet. I just laugh wistfully.

But… honestly, we’re on our way there. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I am convinced that this tunnel DOES have an end.

Our current schedule is: I nurse Jamieson sometime around 8 or 9 p.m. I then go to bed. Hopefully Jamie falls asleep too, and Doc puts him in his pack ‘n’ play or his swing, and stays downstairs with him. When he’s next hungry, Doc gives him a bottle of formula. Often he’s successful at keeping Jamie asleep during this process (yes, this child can eat in his sleep!). Then around 2 a.m., Doc brings Jamie to me to nurse again, and after that, we all go to bed. With luck, Jamie doesn’t wake again until 5:30 a.m., and then I can sometimes get him back to sleep for a little while after that before I get up and get ready for work.

So between the time I go to bed and the time I get up in the morning, I often nurse him just twice… sometimes just ONCE if things go really well! This is a massive improvement over the 4 or 5 times I’d get up to nurse him for the first three months of his life. Doc has really saved my sanity by staying up with him and giving him some formula at 11 p.m. or midnight, and then staying up for another shift. It’s not that Jamie doesn’t sleep during these early night shifts — he often does, in fact — but he tends to “murf” around in his sleep, moving and making little grunty sounds. I wake up easily when he makes noise at night (my “mom ears” are on), so him being away from me for a few hours helps me to get some good solid sleep.